J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

Turner’s exploration of Tivoli included a large number of landscape sketches drawn from the river valley to the north. He was particularly attracted by the spectacle of the town’s ancient ruins perched above the steep, wooded gorge and streaming waterfalls. This drawing depicts a view of the town from the ruins of the Villa of Quintilius Varus, adjacent to the Santuario di Quintiliolo (Church of the Madonna of Quintiliolo) situated on the northern slopes of the valley. Remnants of the foundations as well as broken fragments of masonry can be seen amidst the trees within the foreground. The vista looks south-east towards the opposite side of ravine and the ruins of the Santuario di Ercole Vincitore (Sanctuary of Hercules Victor), a large temple complex dating from the first century BC, formerly known as the Villa of Maecenas. Visible above the Santuario is the sixteenth-century Villa d’Este, whilst on the far left-hand side is a medieval watch-tower. Like many drawings within this sketchbook, the composition has been executed over a washed grey background. Turner has created highlights within the work by rubbing or lifting out the wash to reveal the white paper beneath, principally to depict the trees and the silvery streams of the falling cascatelli (or cascatelle), the lesser cascades emerging beneath the substructures of the temple. He has further enhanced the dramatic chiaroscuro by darkening area of deep shadow with vigorous shading and hatched lines.

The Santuario di Ercole Vincitore was one of Tivoli’s most famous landmarks and its picturesque qualities had made it a popular subject for artists. Revd John Chetwode Eustace in A Classical Tour Through Italy, first published in 1813, recommended the view from the opposite side of the valley where ‘the towers of the town rising on the top of the hill beyond the cascade, with the ruins of Maecenas’s villa on its shelving side, form one of the most delicious pictures for softness and beauty, wildness and animation, that can be imagined.’1 He described the temple as Turner would have seen it:

The ruin features in many of Turner’s 1819 sketches looking both up and down the valley, and he also made detailed tonal studies of the architecture and the arched passageway underneath the substructures, see folio 5 (D15471). A similar view from the Villa of Quintilius Varus can be seen on folio 23 (D15489). It was the vista from the north-east, however, which seems to have held the most enduring visual appeal for the artist and which was ultimately developed within more finished work, see folio 3 (D15469).

Verso:
Blank, except for traces of grey watercolour wash
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘355’ bottom left, and by unknown hand(s) in pencil ‘396’ top centre right-hand edge and ‘clxxxiii-17?’ bottom left